The Diviners (The Diviners #1) by Libba Bray

🌟🌟🌟🌓 out of 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 

Evie O’Neill has been exiled from her boring old hometown and shipped off to the bustling streets of New York City—and she is pos-i-tute-ly ecstatic. It’s 1926, and New York is filled with speakeasies, Ziegfeld girls, and rakish pickpockets. The only catch is that she has to live with her uncle Will and his unhealthy obsession with the occult.

Evie worries he’ll discover her darkest secret: a supernatural power that has only brought her trouble so far. But when the police find a murdered girl branded with a cryptic symbol and Will is called to the scene, Evie realizes her gift could help catch a serial killer.

As Evie jumps headlong into a dance with a murderer, other stories unfold in the city that never sleeps. A young man named Memphis is caught between two worlds. A chorus girl named Theta is running from her past. A student named Jericho hides a shocking secret. And unknown to all, something dark and evil has awakened. 

I have tried to read The Diviners two times before without much success so I decided to try the audio book this time. I think that this helped me to work my way through the book even though I didn't love the narrator. The narrator made many of the male characters sound the same so it was difficult to differentiate between all of them. This forced me to pay close attention to when characters were addressing each other so I knew who was speaking. 

The first issue that I came across with this book was Evie. I hated her and continued to hate her through this read through as well. She didn't appear to have any redeeming qualities until the end of the book. I felt like I was able to see some change in her which made me think that she was growing as a character but then she did something towards the very end of the book that made me go back to how I originally felt about her. She is a selfish person that seems to disregard the feelings and wants of others in favor of her own. I also found her childish and annoying. She is the main reason that I had so much trouble with this book and had to start and stop it the few times before. I'm okay with reading books with characters that are different from me and flawed. In fact, I love flawed characters but Evie was not my cup of tea. 

I also had some trouble with the historical piece of the book but that is just personal preference and one that I was able to enjoy once I ignored Evie's slang and annoying personality. I thought that the author did a fantastic job of world building to the point where I felt as if I was living in the 1920's. I loved the little things that the author was able to do to bring readers into the world including how each of the characters have a different view of it and where they fit. I thought that it was interesting to see the difference in experience between Memphis, a black teenager, and Evie, a well off white teenager within the world. 

My favorite part of the book was the actual plot of the story. It was creepy and gave me chills at different points while reading it. It was different from what I have read before in paranormal thrillers and I loved how the author didn't hold back from being gruesome or scary. I wish that the book would have focused more on that portion of the story rather than having the book from the different points of view and Evie's whining. I'm not sure if I will continue reading the series. I loved the story but I still have a difficult time dealing withe Evie. She doesn't seem like she is going to change so reading the book might be like trying to move through quicksand. 

Foundryside (Founders #1) by Robert Jackson Bennett

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 out of 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Sancia Grado is a thief, and a damn good one. And her latest target, a heavily guarded warehouse on Tevanne’s docks, is nothing her unique abilities can’t handle. 
 
But unbeknownst to her, Sancia’s been sent to steal an artifact of unimaginable power, an object that could revolutionize the magical technology known as scriving. The Merchant Houses who control this magic--the art of using coded commands to imbue everyday objects with sentience--have already used it to transform Tevanne into a vast, remorseless capitalist machine. But if they can unlock the artifact’s secrets, they will rewrite the world itself to suit their aims. 
 
Now someone in those Houses wants Sancia dead, and the artifact for themselves. And in the city of Tevanne, there’s nobody with the power to stop them. 
 
To have a chance at surviving—and at stopping the deadly transformation that’s under way—Sancia will have to marshal unlikely allies, learn to harness the artifact’s power for herself, and undergo her own transformation, one that will turn her into something she could never have imagined.

I guarantee that you have probably never read a book like Foundryside. I didn't know much information about the book before reading other than the main character was something of a thief. I'm glad that I went into the book basically blind and I think that it made the story so much more of an adventure. Since I thoroughly enjoyed the book and I want more people to read it, I will give a bit of a tease about the world the story takes place in. There are four main merchant houses that have control as a sort of council or ruling class. They have control over a kind of magic called scribing which entails using coded commands to change everyday objects with sentience. This makes for an extremely interesting world and interactions between characters from different parts of society. The main character, Sancia, steals something rare and valuable and now what seems like the entire world is chasing after her in order to have the object and the power it represents for themselves.

I thought that the stolen object in particular was a fascinating part of the story and something I had never seen in a book before. It was so new to me that it was disorienting. I felt like I had to change my mindset in order to continue reading because it was so strange. I thought that the story was thought provoking and a visual feast. I could picture all of the author's descriptions with vivid detail in my mind. I also thought that the pacing was well done. There were no moments in the book where I felt that the book was slow or drawn out. It wasn't too fast paced but just right in my mind. I thought that the characters were fleshed out well and were complex enough to give the story meaning that added to the plot. I can't wait to read the next installment. I'm just disappointed I have to wait until next year to get my hands on it.